8779

We gave you a sneak peak a few days ago of the AT&T-Nokia update for the Lumia 900 which features and OS update (‘Tango’ build 8779) and new firmware (build 12223) and now that update is live for all to download (or should be very soon).

Starting today, plugging your AT&T branded Lumia 900 into Zune Desktop should prompt you for an OS update, which will then walk you through the short process. A hard-reset is not required and users will not lose any information.

If you’re a regular reader (and listener) of this site you know by now that myself and fellow camera-enthusiast George Ponder have been…harsh…on the AT&T Nokia Lumia 900’s camera. We rated it as one of the worst we’ve used in quite some time (though not as bad as Dell’s) and it often prevents us from using the phone as our daily driver. The Titan II though easily blows us away.

We’ve staked our position that it’s the hardware that is the problem on the 900 and while we still believe that to be the case it does appear Nokia has finally figured out how to best optimize its software. Of course we’re talking about the un-released Tango OS and firmware update which we detailed yesterday.

For the last 24 hours we’ve been pouring over the camera, snapping pictures in different environments and we have come to this conclusion: this update dramatically fixes the Lumia 900’s camera…

Well after biting the bullet and factory-resetting our Lumia 900 with a ROM flash, we managed to update our glossy-white AT&T Lumia 900 to the official Tango update. That update is sitting in stand-by on Nokia’s servers, presumably waiting for AT&T to give the go to push out to the Zune servers so the rest of you can update.

Although you can manually do this yourself using a third-party program called Nokia Care Suite, you will factory-flash the phone meaning the device will be completely wiped—no saved games, no saved photos. In that regard, you may be best served by just waiting a few days (weeks?) for it to hit Zune where you can just update the phone and keep everything.

In the meantime, we sacrificed for your knowledge. In turn you can watch our video hands on after the break for our thoughts on the update in addition to our mini-review...

We’re in the finally stages of waiting for AT&T and Nokia to push out the much anticipated ‘Tango’ update for the Lumia 900 Windows Phone. Windows Phone ‘Tango’ will feature improvements to MMS including multiple messages and audio file support in addition to other minor changes. In addition, the inclusion of new firmware from Nokia should allow some of Nokia’s exclusive apps like Counters and Contact Share to finally work as well as flip-to-silence and other bug fixes and enhancements.

The information comes via Navifirm+ which shows uploaded files to Nokia servers. There we can clearly see the 8779 update (slightly higher than the 8773 OS on some Windows Phones) with the AT&T naming in the files.

Last night we revealed that Nokia had some 8779 OS updates with presumably some new firmware on their servers for the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800. At the time, we didn’t know what the updates included as 8779 is just slightly ahead of the just released 8773. Looks like we got Nokia's attention as they just gave out the details on the forthcoming update.

Technically speaking, we still don’t know what it’s in the OS as far as changes go (they're expected to be minor) but we now know what is coming with the bundled firmware. What’s more, it looks like the Lumia 900 will be getting the update too (although no word about AT&T, specifically). In fact, we’ve heard that the Lumia 900 in Germany already had 8779 on board so this is probably ready to rollout. Also, instead of the Lumia 800 we have info on the Lumia 610 instead.

From the sounds of it, these updates are very close to being releases so you’ll have to check for availability (or just watch our site). You can get more info when it’s made available at http://www.nokia.com/support. You do have to give Nokia some credit though, they're on top of these updates.

There was no mention of the post-Tango 8779 for the Lumia 800 though, which is curious because we did see those on Nokia's NaviFirm servers. Perhaps they're not ready for prime time just yet. We'll keep you posted.

Edit: As some users are pointing out, Nokia Connects may have the firmware numbers wrong. The latest firmware looks to be 12221 and not 12201 and some of those 710 new features came out with the 8773 update. So this is still a bit murky.

Nokia is keeping up with developing OS updates for its Lumia line of devices or at least they keep priming them for release. The latest update, found on the NaviFirm servers, is for build 8779 which is just slightly ahead of build 8773 aka Tango. Tango just started rolling out by various carriers and OEMs last week (see out documented features list for Tango here).

What’s new in 8779? We’re actually not sure. Support for the location-based alert icon is thought to be one, but we’ve seen it on a Lumia 610 with specific firmware (not ours though). Due to the regions where this is being prepped for—Thailand, Pakistan, India, Lebanon, Tunisia—we’re going to guess that better support for specific markets could be another feature. Other features like static-IP for WiFi and more SIM options may also be available are other possible options.

The OS update is unofficially available for the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 (nothing for the 900 just yet) and can be downloaded using NaviFirm Plus and flashing your device. It’s a tricky process but technically legit as it uses Nokia’s own methods. However, there are still risks involved including not being able to flash back and due to the language issue (we’re not sure what language packs are onboard) you may not be able to read your device again.

For that reason, we can’t recommend trying this out but we’ll keep an eye out if and when more region- or carrier-specific versions pop up. Thanks, Melicaster, for the tip

We just got a report in that the venerable (and underrated) HTC Mozart is receiving a Windows Phone "Tango" update. The news comes form the personal blog of Aviraj Ajgekar, who is a Technology Evangelist at Microsoft Corporation.

That puts him pretty high up there as far as credibility. What's more, he documented the whole experience noting that his Mozart (we assume un-branded) received no less than three updates, going from OS build 8112.7 to 8773.98 to 8779.8, putting it just slightly ahead of what we understand to be "standard" Tango or Windows Phone Mango, Commercial Release 3 (CR3).

The whole update only took a few minutes to download mostly due to the fact that "Tango" only offers a few fixes and updates to the OS (mostly around enhancing MMS).

No word if HTC is pushing this out for their other devices but we have a feeling we'll be reporting on this a lot more for HTC phones very soon.